
Suffering is part of life. It’s also a central theme in the Jewish faith. Indeed, every summer, Jews commemorate two calamitous days in our history by abstaining from food and drink. On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, we remember several tragic events, like the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. And on the Ninth of Av, we mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
But suffering and anguish are not aspects only of Jewish history. They also animate the Jewish experience today. This summer, as we fast and remember the disasters of the past, our hearts and minds will be focused on the distress of the here and now—especially the atrocities of October 7th.
But how are Jews supposed to respond to pain and suffering? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel had an answer.
Heschel urged us to first acknowledge that “ordeals” and “anguish” are part of the “totality of life.” But accepting such a reality shouldn’t lead to “complacency” or “fatalistic resignation.” Instead, Heschel counseled us to be “keenly sensitive” to the “adversity and evil in [our own lives] and in that of others.” In other words, the mere recognition that suffering is an inevitable aspect of the human experience shouldn’t result in apathy.
Ultimately, Heschel advocated for a particular response to “adversity and evil.” He thought we should “rise above grief.” Indeed, to Heschel, responding to calamity with “grief”, “seem[ed]” like a “sort of arrogance.”
Heschel advocated for a particular response to “adversity and evil.” He thought we should “rise above grief.”
Why? Well, Heschel reminded us that “[w]e never know the ultimate meaning of things, and so a sharp distinction between what we deem good or bad in experience is unfair.” We should, in other words, practice some epistemic humility. We are not omniscient. We don’t—and can’t—know why suffering happens. That type of knowledge is held by God alone. Responding to tragedy with grief, then, suggests we understand what’s outside our reach.
At first blush, Heschel’s position sounds harsh. Are we truly not supposed to grieve when we confront murder and destruction?
But, again, Heschel did not advocate apathy—indeed, he thought that mankind could respond more poignantly to tragedy. He urged us to enlist a more powerful weapon against suffering: love. As he bluntly put it, “[i]t is a greater thing to love than to grieve.”
If we were to understand suffering, we might grow apathetic towards it. Don’t we often try to combat death, disease, and destitution so valiantly because we find them so incomprehensible, so undeserved, and so senseless? It’s the impossibility of understanding that motivates our resistance.
Recall what happened when Moses spoke to God at the burning bush. He desperately tried to understand why the Jewish people were in bondage. He asked God: “Why have You brought trouble to this people?”
And how did God respond? He didn’t explain to Moses why the Jewish people were enslaved. In fact, He never provided Moses with a rationale. But that’s not to say that God didn’t care about the plight of the Jewish people. Of course He did. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written about this exchange: “God does not want people to be poor, hungry, sick, oppressed, uneducated, deprived of rights, or subject to abuse.” But rather than giving Moses an explanation, he enlisted him in His cause: He sent Moses to free the Jewish people from slavery.
That’s how we are all supposed to respond to suffering.
We don’t need to understand suffering. We need to fight it. As Rabbi Sacks wrote: “When it comes to the poverty and pain of the world, ours is a religion of protest, not acceptance.” Judaism calls upon us to answer suffering with sacrifice. It asks that we respond to calamity with charity. It instructs us to combat pain with prayer. In short, we’re supposed to love—not merely to grieve.
Heschel advocated for just that. And he practiced what he preached. When Heschel witnessed racial injustice in the United States, he didn’t just grieve. He linked arms with Martin Luther King Jr. as they marched in Selma. Heschel didn’t just lament—he loved.
We should do the same. As Jews fast this summer, we should reflect on the tragedies of the past and the ongoing trials of the present. But reflection cannot turn into resignation. We’ll have to “rise above grief.” And like Moses and Heschel, we’ll have to choose love.
Elias Neibart is a student at Harvard Law School and was previously a Krauthammer Fellow at the Tikvah Fund.